Jorge's Blog

Music in film

Though we might think of film soley as a visual experience, we often overlook the importance of music in film. Finding music that fits a scene is often as complicated as creating the image on the screen itself.

Music is definitely one of the most important aspects of film making, the music alone can turn a mediocre film into a great one. Music can also help create the mood for a particular scene, a good example would be when you watch a horror or suspense film, it’s not nearly the same experience if you were to watch it on mute since there is no music to build up the suspense which is what engages the viewer emotionally to the film. Another thing to keep in mind is that the music should not be so noticeable or overpowering, it should just establish the right tone or the emotional attitude toward the story and/or the characters in the film, even when you don’t think it’s making a difference, the audience can just hear the music and it subconsciously affects how they feel about the things happening on the screen. Finding the right song for a scene can be challenging, your song choice can either make your film or break it since it is what adds the emotion for that scene. As film students, we often tend to pay too much attention to the lyrics of a particular song and not so much to the actual music. When searching for the right song for a scene, as long as the film has an interesting story, lyrics are hardly ever noticed, so if we’ve moved the viewer emotionally and the music has strengthened the film, I’m convinced we’ve done our job.

All in all, music is fundamentally important in creating memorable motion pictures. Without music, films would be left boring and lifeless.